


and stirring faint beneath the winter snow

by Burning_Nightingale



Series: The Mage Of Hokanniemi [1]
Category: A Redtail's Dream (Webcomic), Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Animal Death, M/M, Magic, Minor Character Death, Nightmares, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-15 19:52:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13038228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Burning_Nightingale/pseuds/Burning_Nightingale
Summary: Days spent hunting in the winter forest; nights spent dreaming of something he'd rather forget.Hannu's life after the end of the world.





	and stirring faint beneath the winter snow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lunarium](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunarium/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide, recip! I've always wanted to do an SSSS/Redtail's Dream crossover, so here's a bit of one :D 
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

_Year One, Day 115_

There had been a moment, Hannu thinks, when everyone realised things weren’t going back to normal.

That had been the moment when ‘you can stay at my cabin until the epidemic’s over’ became ‘well I guess you live with us now’. When ‘we’re riding out the epidemic on Hietasaari island’ became ‘we live on Hietasaari’. The moment when ‘we’re just seeing how it goes’ became ‘I suppose we need some kind of organisation’.

That had been the moment people began to accept that the radio wasn’t going to crackle into life and start speaking again, that the army wasn’t coming, that their food stores had to last longer than until the shops opened again. That they probably weren’t going to go home.

Of course, some people had left. Some hadn’t been able to accept the idea of just sitting on an island, hiding, while the world ended around them. Some hadn’t been able to face the idea of being stuck on Hietasaari for the rest of their lives.

Some had just wanted to go home.

But more have stayed. And now, they’re building.

Quite literally, in today’s case.

“Hand me that hammer, Hannu.”

To no one’s surprise, Paju is one of those who’ve stepped up to take a leadership position. She isn’t shy about getting stuck into the physical work their little community requires, either. And for this task, every pair of hands is needed; especially since at least half the village are still sceptical about the need for a palisade. Paju, on the other hand, has been convinced by the hunter’s accounts of having seen ‘something’ out in the woods, and has persuaded or bullied enough people into helping her that they’re already halfway done.

She’d clearly been surprised, when Hannu had offered to help without protest, but she hadn’t asked him why.

“Is Viljami really going to ban us from cutting down trees on the island after we finish the palisade?” Ville asks from behind them.

 “He can’t _ban_ us from doing anything, Ville,” Paju says, hammering a nail into place with quick, vigorous strokes. “We’re a democracy. But the Council is thinking about it.”

“It sounds so self-important when you call it a ‘Council’,” Hannu says, muttering around the nails in his mouth.

Paju, of course, still hears him. “What would you call it then, oh wise one?” she snaps.

“The group of busybodies who argue about every little damn thing.”

“Because that’s not a mouthful.”

“‘The Nosy Busybody Club’ for short?”

“I’ve finished this section,” Ville says pointedly from behind them, “Can you come check my row, Paju?”

After sending one venomous look Hannu’s way, Paju turns and walks over to Ville, leaning down to check on his knitting. Ville has been fascinated by the dexterity of human fingers ever since his transformation; he’s quickly become fond of skills that require complex work with his hands. Knitting is the latest - and in Hannu’s opinion, most useful - obsession.

“It looks good, Ville,” Paju says, “I think you’re finally getting the hang of this.” Ville beams at her.

“So when will I have my scarf, then?”Hannu asks.

“Don’t rush him,” Paju chides.

“Soon,” Ville says.

“Could have done with it at the _start_ of winter instead of at the end of it…”

“Hannu!”

When Paju says his name like that it usually means she’s building up to a rant, but this time she stays silent. Hannu’s thinking he’s got off lightly, until she says, “Good morning, Mr Tiira.”

Hannu rolls his eyes. “Morning, Paju,” Samuli’s voice says from behind him. “I’m afraid I need to borrow your friend there.”

“Me?” Ville says.

“No. You, Hannu.”

Hannu holds in a groan as he turns round. “Me? Why me?”

Samuli is frowning at him. “You can use a crossbow, can’t you?”

Hannu is about to deny it, but Ville mutters, “Oh yes, he can,” before he can.

“Good. I need to start teaching other people how to hunt, and if you can already shoot, that’s half the work done.” Samuli turns and glances back over his shoulder. “Coming?”

Hannu doesn’t want to, but he knows he’ll get it in the neck from Paju and the others if he doesn’t ‘pull his weight’. Someone on the ‘Council’ has probably put Samuli up to this in the first place. “Yeah yeah, I’m coming. Just let me get my crossbow.”

*

Hannu isn’t exactly a woodsman.

He’d used to love messing about outside as a kid, but hiking through the woods is a lot of effort, and learning to do it quietly is on another level entirely.

“Try to place your feet,” Samuli says for the third time. “If you step on every damn branch we’ll never catch anything.”

Hannu grits his teeth and swallows a sharp retort. If he starts an argument they could be here all day.

Part of him wonders if he could make Samuli give up the idea of teaching him if he messes everything up on purpose. But another part of him imagines having an excuse to go off and spend days in the woods alone, without anyone hassling or bothering him. If dealing with Samuli bossing him around for a little while is the price of that, maybe it’s worth it.

“Keep up, Hannu!”

Then again, maybe not.

They stop for a quick midday meal in a small, snow-covered clearing. The sky above is a clear, bright blue, and Hannu shivers even inside his coat. At least walking created some small amount of warmth.

“You’re getting a little better,” Samuli says into the silence, surprising Hannu.

“Really? I was under the impression I sucked,” Hannu says, folding his arms.

“Oh, you still suck,” Samuli says, “You’re just a little better than you were.”

*

_The girl is sitting in the snow ahead of them._

_Ville takes a step toward her, and Hannu pulls him back by the arm._

_There’s something…wrong._

_The picture flickers in and out like a bad video. Distantly Hannu is aware this is a dream, a memory, one he’s re-lived too many times._

_He pulls Ville behind him. There’s something wrong with the girl. They need to…they need…_

*

_Year One, Day 120_

Hannu didn’t sleep well last night (he doesn’t like to think about the nightmare, but flashes of it come back to his mind anyway) and he’d really prefer to sit this meeting out, but it’s been made abundantly clear to the population of their little island community that attendance is compulsory.

“I now call this session to order.”

The man standing at the head of the ‘Council’ is Viljami Pietarinen, once a businessman from the city, whose family owned a holiday cabin here on the island. There are a lot of people here who didn’t come from Hokanniemi, whom Hannu hadn’t ever met before. Viljami has a face people trust, a voice people like listening to. It served him well in business, and it seems to be serving him well in this new world too.

“I think we’ve all faced up to the reality that we’re settling in for the long haul,” Viljami says, looking around at all the people watching him. “We need to make sure we’re able to survive on Hietasaari long term. Primarily, this means we need to be secure, able to defend ourselves, and able to be self-sufficient with regards to food. What we’d really like is for anyone with farming experience to come forward, as that’s where we primarily want to focus our efforts.”

The community of the island is no more than a hundred people, but many of them were from rural communities, and people begin to step forward. It’s a promising start.

“I’ve already been identifying areas of suitable farmland on the island,” says Marjaana Kari, one of the survivors who came late to the island. She’s never said how far she came, but Hannu gets the feeling it was a long way. He gets the feeling she saw things on the way, too.

Ville is shifting in his seat next to him, like he’s uncomfortable, or possibly excited. “What?” Hannu asks in an undertone.

“I always thought working on a farm might be kinda cool,” Ville says.

“Careful what you wish for. We’ll be put to work on the farms soon enough.” Hannu raises an eyebrow at him. “A farm, though?”

“Yeah. You remember that time with the field, with all the snakes-”

“That wasn’t fun! That was nuts!”

Ville huffs. “It was kinda cool.”

“It was in the spirit world. Real farms are boring.”

“We’ll see.”

As usual with these meetings, an argument is breaking out at the front, while uninterested parties are getting up from their seats and drifting into small groups to chat. Their relaxed, informal style of government seems to suit everyone just fine, though Hannu wonders how long it will last. He wonders how long it will be until someone gets power hungry, or a more serious argument breaks out and divides the community, or any one of another few hundred disaster scenarios he’s thought out becomes reality. He used to watch a lot of post-apocalypse movies; he knows how these things go.

Still, he thinks, catching sight of Samuli out of the corner of his eye, if he can get the hang of this woodcraft stuff, maybe he’ll be able to sneak away into the night with Ville when it all goes to shit.

Maybe Paju too. But no promises.

*

_Year One, Day 143_

The days pass, and Hannu actually gets better at hunting.

Not quite in the way Samuli is good at hunting, though. Samuli is good at tracking, at predicting. Hannu is good at…just _knowing_.

Sometimes he catches flashes of a feeling, a sense of certainty, leading him somewhere. Sometimes he knows the ice over a patch of frozen water will hold his weight before he steps onto it, and sometimes he just _knows_ an area of the forest isn’t safe, always without being able to explain why.

Once he tells Samuli they have to hide with such seriousness that the older man obeys him without question, and they crouch in a tangle of undergrowth for an hour while _something_ comes stomping and sniffing around the clearing they’d vacated only minutes before. Whatever it was, it sounded bigger than a deer, and it didn’t leave footprints Samuli recognised.

“My father used to call it the hunter’s sense,” Samuli says one day. They’ve reached the ridge of a small hill, and have paused a moment, watching the trees below sway in the sharp winter wind. “He said some people have an instinctive knowledge of the forest, of what’s going to happen. He would’ve told you to trust it.”

“And what would you tell me?” Hannu asks.

“Don’t rely on something unpredictable.” Samuli swings his bow back up over his shoulder. “Come on. We’ve still got a lot to catch.”

*

_Year One, Day 145_

The dream comes again, and when it ends Hannu can’t stand being trapped in the dark confines of their small room any longer. He slips out, careful not to wake Ville, and lets himself out of the house and into the cool night air.

The sky is full of a thousand stars, beautiful and bright and clear. As Hannu stares upward he wonders where he might have been tonight, had the Kuikka’s not offered to take him and Ville with them to their cabin to wait out the epidemic. Where might he have gone? What might he have seen? Would his eyes hold haunted depths like Marjaana Kari and the other survivors who came to Hietasaari later?

In the endless sea of stars, something moves.

It takes Hannu a moment to focus on it. There’s a shape, up there in the heavens, solidifying, moving closer. By the time he realises it’s not his imagination, he can make out the silhouette of a bird.

The great starry eagle lands in a rush of wind that shakes the treetops and whips Hannu’s hair back from his face, but makes no sound.

“Well,” Hannu says, “I hope you’re here to apologise.”

Kokko’s gaze is cool when she looks him over. “For what?”

“Seems like protecting nature hasn’t been your top priority lately.”

The way Kokko ruffles her feathers seems like annoyance. “I assure you, our duty has not been abandoned. This is not only an attack on your kind.”

“I see.” Hannu folds his arms. “What are you here for, anyway?”

“The world is falling apart, but it is also renewing itself. Things are seeping back in through the cracks,” Kokko says. “I wanted to see for myself if what Mr Moose said about you was true.”

“What did he say about me?” Hannu demands. “You’ve been gossiping about me behind my back?”

“He only guessed,” Kokko says, “But I have a feeling we will soon know for sure.” She raises her great wings, sending dirt and loose snow swirling. “I always enjoyed talking to mortals in dreams; it seems you may soon be responsive once again.”

With that cryptic comment she takes off, leaving Hannu alone in the dark.

When he tells Ville in the morning, his friend is only annoyed Hannu didn’t come in and wake him up so he could say hello.

*

_This time when Hannu finds himself in a dream, he’s not trapped in his recurring nightmare. He’s somewhere new._

_He’s never seen this place before, and yet it feels familiar as his own home. Like somewhere he’s always known, and yet somewhere only glimpsed in his imagination._

_It reminds him of the clearing around his old house, except denser, wilder. Trees arch above his head, creating a canopy that blocks out the sky, swaying back and forth in the wind._

_Hannu is on his back on the ground, staring up at the branches moving. The forest moves around him, changing and flickering before his eyes._

_Inside his head he thinks, where am I?_

_Another voice says,_ Somewhere else.

*

_Year One, Day 148_

Hannu finds himself being shaken back to consciousness by Ville. “Siiri is missing,” he says. “Everyone’s joining the search.”

The fact that Siiri is a young girl shouldn’t make a difference, but it does. The nightmare returned to Hannu last night, and now it haunts his waking hours, images appearing before his eyes while he’s trying to concentrate. He makes mistakes, messes up things he mastered ages ago, and it doesn’t long go unnoticed.

“Your head isn’t in it today,” Samuli snaps, stopping them in the middle of a trail. “You _need_ to be _here_ today, _present_. If we don’t find this girl soon she’ll die, is that clear? Sort out your problem.”

 _My problem is the girl_ , Hannu thinks, but he can’t say it.

_The girl is in the snow. There’s a flash of bright red- her blood-_

Hannu pushes the image away with a determined shove. He can’t continue to let it distract him; this is a different girl, and this will end differently. What happened before won’t happen this time.

They push on through the forest, scouring each glade, each bush, each tangled growth of underbrush. The tracks Samuli found a few hours ago are becoming muddled, hard to follow, and Hannu is distantly aware that they’re a long way from the village now. Further than a girl should have been able to get in one day.

As the sun starts to go down, Samuli seems to waken from a trance. He curses as he watches the red light play over the snow. “We’re too far from the village. We need to find shelter.”

“There’s an abandoned building two miles north,” Hannu says without thinking about it. A few seconds after the words come out of his mouth, he blinks. How did he know that?

Samuli raises an eyebrow at him, but he turns northward.

As promised, there’s a building waiting. An abandoned farmhouse.

Samuli eyes Hannu sidelong as they stand in front of it. “How did you know this was here?”

“I don’t know. I just knew.”

“That’s beyond any hunter’s sense my father ever told me about.”

“I guess I’m just psychic then,” Hannu snaps, eager for this line of questioning to end. “Let’s check inside, shall we? It’s getting dark.”

Inside the farmhouse is cold, but dry. There are no rotting corpses to be discovered in any of the rooms, but Hannu has a feeling whoever lived here didn’t abandon the house; firelighters, mugs, tinned food and other useful items still sit in their places, just waiting to be used.

“Something in the woods must have got them,” Samuli mutters. Hannu just nods.

Samuli gets the fire going while Hannu explores the upstairs bedrooms, looking for blankets. He pulls five of them back down into the living room, where bright firelight is flickering over the walls. They wrap themselves up and huddle in front of the fire, a little too close for Hannu’s liking, but he’s cold enough not to complain.

“So,” Samuli says, “are you going to tell me why searching for this kid bothers you so much?”

Hannu starts, then looks away. “It doesn’t,” he says, too quick.

“I can see that it does. You flinch every time I mention her.” A moment of silence, and then in a quieter voice, “Something happened?”

They’d tried to come through the city. It had been chaos, pandemonium. Ville and Hannu had been separated from Paju and the Kuikka’s in the crush. They’d made it to Hietasaari on their own.

Ville had blocked out the memories, and Hannu had never told him. He hadn’t told Paju, or Jonna, or Joona, or anyone else. None of them would understand.

They didn’t talk much, on their hunting trips, but they’d achieved a certain peace between them. A certain understanding. Maybe that was why Samuli felt comfortable asking him straight out what was bothering him.

Hannu remembers the moment they’d seen Samuli walk into their growing village, Astrid absent from his side, and thinks maybe the other man will understand.

“There was a girl, on the road from the city,” Hannu says, slow and halting. “She was… infected.”

Samuli nods into the long silence. There’s no need to explain further. He understands.

“Ville doesn’t remember it. I never told him- I didn’t want him to-” Hannu stops, swallows. “I still see-”

“She was already dead,” Samuli interrupts, his voice uncharacteristically gentle. “Sometimes saving yourself and those you care about is more important.”

“I still shouldn’t have- I should have just _left_ her-”

“You did her a kindness,” Samuli says, his gaze intense. “No one wants to become…well, you know.” After a pause he says, “Go to sleep, Hannu. And don’t dream of her. She’s at peace, now.”

*

_The second time Hannu dreams he’s in the forest clearing, he breathes a sigh of relief. This place is odd and as unsettling as it is soothing, but at least its not the nightmare._

_He sits up this time, and looks around. The edge of the clearing seems to melt into water, into a wide expanse that he can’t quite see. Something out there calls to him, and yet another instinct tells him he’ll be safe if he just says right here._

_On a branch just over his head, an owl calls._

_When Hannu glances up at it, it’s looking right back at him._

_“Wh-”_

*

_Year One, Day 149_

“-ke up. Hannu, wake up! There’s something outside.”

Samuli is shaking him awake, whispering into his ear. Faint grey light suffuses through the room; it must be near dawn.

A second later Hannu hears a _crack_ and a grunt outside, and his senses snap to high alert. There’s something outside alright; he can feel it there like a knife being drawn along a nerve, somewhere deep inside him. He can’t explain why, or how, but he just _can_.

“It’s near the back door,” he hisses, “It’s searching for a way in.”

Samuli hefts his crossbow up. “Like hell it’s getting in.”

The creature, whatever it is, is strong; two massive points like crab pincers explode through the back door as Samuli and Hannu run in through the entrance to the kitchen. Samuli ducks back into the hall while Hannu crouches and skids under the table. The creature twists its pincers, slowly turning the door into splinters.

Samuli makes a dash over to the table and slides in beside Hannu. “Shoot as soon as you see a soft part.”

“Noted,” Hannu says dryly.

For a second there is only the cracking of wood, and the growls that don’t sound like any normal beast Hannu has ever heard. Then Samuli says, “Hannu- if we don’t make it through this- I just want you to-”

“We’re making it through this,” Hannu cuts him off. He’s not sure he’s ready to hear whatever Samuli has to say.

Besides, they’re probably going to die now, so he probably won’t have to deal with it.

Time seems to slow as the door finally gives way, bursting inward, revealing a horror greater than anything Hannu sees in his nightmares. A sound like rushing wind is loud in Hannu’s ears as he raises his crossbow, bolt primed to fire. _I wanted to see for myself if what Mr Moose said about you was true_ , Kokko’s voice says in his ear, and his finger pauses on the trigger.

Beside him, Samuli sends a bolt flying into the creature, which only seems to make it angry. “Hannu! Shoot!” he yells, already reloading.

Instead, Hannu raises one hand.

_I have a feeling we will soon know for sure._

A bright flash of light; then darkness clouds Hannu’s vision, and he knows nothing more.

*

Hannu wakes to the sound of birds, and voices.

“-dragged him back here for nothing,” Samuli’s voice says. He’s trying to sound annoyed, but Hannu can hear the worry.

“I can’t see a visible wound on him. He should be fine.” That voice is Nina Kukkonen, the village doctor. “How exactly did he get injured?”

“He…erm…”

“I’m awake now,” Hannu says, blinking his eyes open.

Samuli and Nina both turn to him, surprised. Then Nina nods her head. “There, you see. A knock to the head, just like I said.”

“You said he might not wake up,” Samuli accuses, glaring at her.

“And that he also _might_ wake up. Which he has.” Nina leans over Hannu, inspects his eyes, feels around on the back of his head for a few moments, then shrugs. “No concussion. He doesn’t even seem to have a head wound, so far as I can tell.”

“I have no idea what happened,” Hannu says.

“You’re not the only one,” Samuli mutters.

Nina shrugs again, then picks up her coat. “I’ll come back to check on him later. Stay in bed for the moment Hannu.”

When they’re alone, Hannu says, “How the hell did I get back here? We were about to get eaten by a monster, last I checked.”

“Yes,” Samuli says. For the first time Hannu can remember, he sounds shaken. “Then you… you… you killed it.”

“ _I_ killed it? _How_?”

“You just…” Samuli raises a hand and gestures ineffectively. “You just…shot light at it.”

There’s a beat of silence. “This is a joke,” Hannu says after a moment, “This is the afterlife and you’re joking with me.”

“That would be considerably less weird than this,” Samuli says.

“Maybe. Then again, I’ve been to the afterlife, and it doesn’t look like this.” Hannu sighs and flops back onto his pillow. “Maybe this _is_ real.”

“You’ve been to-” Samuli starts.

“Don’t ask. It’s a long story.”

There’s another long moment of silence, and then Samuli says, “It…it was amazing. Beautiful. It was beautiful.”

Hannu shifts, uncomfortable with the tone of awe in Samuli’s voice. “I don’t remember any of it. Did they find the girl?”

Samuli shakes his head a little, refocusing. “What? Oh, yes. They were already back before we stopped for the night. I have no idea what tracks I was following, but they weren’t hers.”

“Good. That’s good.”

They say nothing, and the awkward silence stretches until the door bursts open, letting Ville come bounding through. “Hannu!” he yells, “I can’t believe you got yourself hurt again!”

Whatever figuring out Hannu needs to do, it will have to wait.

*

_Year One, Day 153_

They don’t talk about what happened, but there’s a difference in the way Samuli looks at him now, a suspicion mixed with awe. It makes Hannu feel strange inside; uncomfortable and excited and nervous all at once. At some point they’re going to talk, and it’s all going to come out; the dream world, the spirits, Ville’s transformation, Hannu’s brush with death, all of it. Hannu can feel it coming.

For now, though, they go into the woods, and they hunt. Hannu feels things, like the wood is a giant spiderweb of light, and defeating that monster strung a connection from him to the web somehow. The forest is alive with _feelings_ , with _energy_ , if you know how to look.

He dreams about the clearing, about the owl, almost every night now.

And when the silent rush of air returns, on a cold night under a dim crescent moon, he’s ready.

“Do you know for sure?” he asks, turning to face the eagle.

Kokko folds her giant wings, her unearthly gaze holding his. “I do,” she says, “Come, mortal. You have much to learn.”

 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [and stirring faint beneath the winter snow by Burning_Nightingale [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13564179) by [Rhea314 (Rhea)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhea/pseuds/Rhea314)




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